Trump Invokes The Ghastly Racist Trope Of Genetic Inferiority
INSIDE: Brett Kavanaugh ... Viktor Bout ... Elon Musk
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
‘Bad Genes’
In a campaign that Donald Trump has centered on race ever since the biracial Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee, the former president continues to ratchet up the toxicity of his rhetoric as the election approaches.
After he and his running mate JD Vance targeted Black Haitian immigrants legally residing in Springfield, Ohio, culminating with a campaign stop there last week, the former president began repeating nonsensical claims about Black immigrants from the Congo.
Then in a new level of vitriol – that echoes some of the worst racism that history has to offer – Trump suggested Monday that some immigrants are genetically inferior:
As Philip Bump notes, it’s not the first time Trump has invoked his baseless theory of genetic differences as part of a broader racist appeal to his audiences.
The dehumanizing of immigrants is nothing new for Trump, either. The not-so-subtle shift to focusing on immigrants of color, while facing off against an opponent with Black and South Asian heritage, is new to this campaign cycle, but it of course reminiscent of his deep foray into birtherism during the presidency of Barack Obama.
Trump’s Deep Anti-Semitism On Full Display, Too
To mark the anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, Donald Trump trafficked in a patented mix of anti-Semitism and narcissism:
“I did more for the Jewish people than anybody — and it’s not reciprocal,” Trump complained to Hugh Hewitt.
In the same interview, Trump falsely claimed that he had visited Gaza in the past.
To make matters worse, a Trump campaign aide pushed back against the insinuation that Trump had lied about visiting Gaza by claiming Gaza is “in Israel” and Trump had visited Israel. Ergo?
Abortion Watch
Several new developments, all with consequences for women’s health and the 2024 election:
Georgia: Georgia Supreme Court reinstates state’s 6-week abortion ban
Texas: The Supreme Court Punts Again On Emergency Abortion Care
Florida: DeSantis Threatening Jail Time for Running Abortion Rights Ads in Florida
BREAKING …
The FBI probe of the sexual assault claims against then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh were constrained by the Trump White House, according to a new report to be released today by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), a fierce opponent of Kavanaugh’s 2018 nomination.
SCOTUS Begins Its New Term
TPM’s Kate Riga: The Supreme Court Returns For A Culture War Term
Nancy Gertner and Stephen Vladeck: This Supreme Court Is Its Own Worst Enemy
NYT: Death Penalty, Nuclear Waste and More: Supreme Court Rounds Out Coming Term
By The Numbers
Kamala Harris takes a lead in NYT/Siena poll for the first time, pulling ahead of Donald Trump among likely voters nationwide 49%-46%.
Tampa Faces Catastrophic Hurricane Milton
The long-feared direct hit on Tampa by a major hurricane – the likes of which hasn’t been experienced in more than a century, during which time development of the bay area exploded – seems nearly inevitable as Milton approaches from the west across an exceptionally warm Gulf of Mexico, according to forecasts from the National Hurricane Center.
Tampa’s unique geography makes it the major U.S. city most vulnerable to a storm surge. The current storm surge warning predicts 10-15 feet of water above normally dry ground in and around Tampa, which is dotted with canals, inlets, and channels that make vast areas of residential and commercial development vulnerable to inundation.
In terms of flooding potential, we’re talking Katrina and Sandy levels of potential inundation. Whether Milton, which deepened Monday into one of the strongest storms on record in the Atlantic basin, leaves a similar trail of destruction and loss of life as those two historic storms will depend in part on how successful today’s continuing evacuation of the west central Florida coastline is. It’s not a survivable storm surge for those who remain.
Evacuating large areas of a major urban area is neither simple nor easy, and in some ways we need to be honest with ourselves that it’s not entirely possible. The logistics are difficult, the communications challenges hard to overcome, and the sheer number of old, infirm, immobile, and those without means makes it a sobering reality that while it’s easy to call for a mass evacuation, it’s nearly impossible to execute one.
If you’ve not lived on the Gulf Coast, it’s difficult to describe how little time you have to decide whether to call an abrupt halt to normal life and shift into hurricane mode. Do you skip class or work today or wait and see until tomorrow? Do you cancel that long-awaited doctor appointment, that much-needed treatment, or that scheduled surgery? What about that deadline at work, or your contractual obligation to a client, or the much-needed service your business provides? These are agonizing decisions that might be easier if they came once a lifetime or once a decade, but they now come more often, sometimes multiple times a year.
The Tampa region is still picking up the pieces from the record storm surge that Hurricane Helene brought as it brushed by on its way to landfall in the Big Bend area of Florida two weeks ago. The second major storm in as many weeks makes it both more challenging to prepare for the second storm and more daunting to recover in its aftermath.
If you have loved ones in the Tampa area, urge them to leave. The pain of regretting your decision to stay after it’s too late to leave is exquisite, especially if you have children, elderly parents, employees, or others depending on you to make good decisions. You do not want to spend the rest of your life carrying the burden of a bad decision with no escape hatch.
Too Much Irony To Bear
Exclusive
WSJ:
Viktor Bout, the Russian arms dealer known as the “Merchant of Death,” walked out of a U.S. prison almost two years ago in a trade with Moscow for U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner. Now he is back in business, trying to broker the sale of small arms to Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militants.
Meet The TheoBros
A good introduction to the world that JD Vance comes from via Mother Jones. If you’ve been following TPM’s coverage of Christian nationalism, you’ll see some familiar characters and overlapping lineages:
So Gross
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Every day, many women in this country are maimed, raped, killed, abused by men/ex-boyfriends/boyfriends/husbands/brothers/fathers/uncles/employers who are not immigrants, who think and have been taught that they are somehow enitled to harm women. What about those genes? I don't need your protection, Trump. I need to feel safe, from men like you. I have the right to feel safe. I need you and your minions to stop spouting toxic masculinity, which has never done anyone any good, ever. When I have to think twice about going for a hike, or walking down a street, going to look at a real estate listing, getting in a car with an Uber driver, or being alone in an elevator or parking garage, I don't have immigrants in mind.
I confess: Trump playing the superior genes card kind of cracks me up pretty much without fail. The irony is just overwhelming.
To put it in his own terms: he’s a subhuman monster, a thoroughly heartless human being of no special intelligence. And having been born bad, he was raised to accentuate all that was bad about him. (Whether he could have been raised to be any sort of good is a) beyond my interest but doubtful and b) judging from his siblings, I tend to doubt such a thing was possible.)
And then there’s the irony of the establishment media being all pissy about Kamala’s media plays which seems to be a focused of going to the audiences to which she needs to go. That the establishment news media’s audiences are in decline is apparently something said media seems to have failed to perceive. OTOH, there’s the Times’ phone app’s redesign which features tabs for a bunch of things. But not one just for news.
Speaking of irony, there’s the one David noted about NOAA’s problem tracking Milton because of what Helene did in and around Asheville.
Sooo much irony. May we live in interesting times indeed…